Through conducting ‘Needs analysis’ or also known as the process of study upon the strategic, rather than grammatical or discourse competence needs of students in using the language, I used a face -to- face questionnaire interview to measure the macro level of Psychology 4th year students, as the studies goes on, I realized that the language -English is not just our secondary language that is needed to learn in enable to be used in our professional work someday, but it has it’s different purposes.
This different specific purposes are sometimes misunderstood by others as just a hard language wherein, you are needed to be perfect in using it’s grammar, pronunciation and its meaning, but as the lesson goes on, learning English is not just applying the usage of language but also developing your skills on its five different macro skills.
ESP (English for Specific Purposes) provides a state of the art look at the relationship between ESP and the key areas of speaking, listening, reading, writing and vocabulary as the macro skills in learning that is also primarily used in learning the subject.
The first macro skill is ‘Speaking’, that eventually talks about the usage of language to analyze speech events of one or more speech involving one or more participants and give meaning to it. This approach can be used to understand relationships and power dynamics within a given community and provide insight on their beliefs, approaches and cultural values.
The speaking skill is well known as the main foundation of communication, but also considered as the most conflicted type among all. The speaking itself had different components that can be applied to many sorts of discourse. One of those components and considered as the most important one is the message and its content that states the meaning of the message.
The setting and scene also serves as one of the factor that gradually gives factor of the communication for it will justify the nature of the text. The speaker/ sender/ addressor is of course the key of communication who gives or serves as the source of communication. The listener/ receiver or audience is the one gives the feedback to the message sent and lastly, the purpose, goal or the outcome of the message dictates if the communication is successful or not.
Speaking might be easy for others especially if you are knowledgeable enough about the language but as I gathered my researched and upon having interview, I found out that speaking is the most complicated skill especially for the students because of different reasons. First of all, some students are not confident about their knowledge in English as well as what forms of speech they should use, limited vocabulary, proper indication of words and unfamiliar words.
They are also having hard time when it comes to the norms of interaction, such as they are afraid to be misinterpreted, scold and being laughed by other people. That’s why according to recent research here in the Philippines, most of the people wants to be professional in speaking more than any other skills in order to communicate with different people with confidence that they would be understood.
Using the skills in speaking the foreign language, you can do different types of speaking and engage in the topic such as Informative speaking that seeks to inform, Invitational speaking that is often similar to informative speaking, but adds judgment into the mix, Dispositional speaking which is more persuasive in intent than invitational speaking in that it seeks to gain agreement on an value or belief and lastly, Actuation speaking seeks to get people to act, to perform in some way.
Although it’s not clear whether similar issues exist in university classes where English is a lingua franca, one could envision other dominant groups potentially exerting a comparable influence, a possibility that is worthy of investigation is that -the native speakers are clearly having the advantage since they are born to speak their own language. Despite a possible uncertain cultural identity or feelings of marginalization, international students are still expected to demonstrate content and speaking genre expertise in classrooms, particularly for oral presentations.
If there is one communication skill you should aim to master, then listening is it. The second macro skill is ‘Listening’ which gives us the ability to accurately receive and interpret messages in the Communication process. Listening means paying attention not only to the story, but how it is told, the use of language and voice, and how the other person uses his or her body. Listening involves complex affective, cognitive, and behavioral processes.
In other words, it means being aware of both verbal and non-verbal messages. Listening is the key to all effective communication. It focuses on your ability to listen effectively depends on the degree to which you perceive and understand these messages. Without the ability to listen effectively, messages are easily misunderstood, as a result, communication breaks down and the sender of the message can easily become frustrated or irritated.
Good listening skills can lead to good communication, better relationship and strong work foundation such as greater productivity with fewer mistakes, and increased sharing of information that in turn can lead to more creative and innovative work. It will also help the student to gather facts effectively and correctly, that results to improved self-esteem and confidence, higher grades at school and in academic work. Many successful leaders and entrepreneurs credit their success to effective listening skills. Richard Branson frequently quotes listening as one of the main factors behind the success of Virgin.
Most of the common problems about listening to English are first, the students aren’t knowledgeable enough about the meaning of the text, yet the speaker are still using unfamiliar words and the speakers speak too fast that they wasn’t able to catch up.
In some English for occupational purposes (EOP) contexts, the basic listening proficiency of learners may be even weaker than that of those studying in tertiary institutions. In other words, ESP listening teachers could do more by way of pedagogy to enhance comprehension processes that will influence how learners make sense of what they hear in a language over which they have inadequate control. Thorough giving different activities, the students will be able to enhance their skills.
All in all, Listening and Speaking are two types of macro skills with different ways of applying the language but is also connected to each other, because as you speak, you also need to listen. After listening, you also need to speak to share your thoughts.
It is hard to other students because you are using a foreign language as the means of communication so you need to really study hard and practice using the English. Communication can also be a good example to this scenario, because it’s always the best if you are engaging in a two way communication, the speaker and the listener needs to support and understand each other.
Listen to the speaker, wherein speaker will also listen to the idea of his listener. People, no matter what profession they are engaged to, they must learned how to listen and speak at the right manner. It’s not only for the future endeavor, but to develop your personality as a person as well. All of this wouldn’t be possible without the effort of the teacher to teach and guide the students and the hard work of students to learn and improve.
